CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With California Congressman Adam Schiff

Interview

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BASH: Welcome back to State of the Union.

[09:15:00]

House Democrats' to-do list just got longer.

House Democrats want to know what is behind President Trump's reluctance to call out Saudi Arabia's crown prince after the gruesome murder and dismemberment of a U.S.-based journalist.

A man who plans to lead that investigation joins me now, Congressman Adam Schiff.

Thank you so much for being here.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you.

BASH: Now, one of the things that you want to probe is the president's relationship with Saudi Arabia.

You told "The Washington Post" you have an idea, that the president is going easy on Saudi Arabia because of his business interests, and that you want to look into that. Do you have any evidence to support that, going in?

SCHIFF: Look, the president is not being honest with the country about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

I think, in part, he feels that, by saying that we don't know or that the world is a dangerous place or everybody does it, he thinks it makes him look strong. It actually makes him look weak. It means that our allies don't respect us, our enemies don't fear us.

What is driving this? I don't know, whether this is simply an affinity that he has for autocrats -- he seems to choose them repeatedly over his own intelligence agencies -- or whether there's a financial motivation, that is, his own personal finances.

We know, of course, he has openly bragged about how many millions he makes from Saudi Arabia. Is his personal financial interests driving U.S. policy in the Gulf? Is it driving us policy vis-a-vis the Russians? We don't know, but it would be irresponsible not to find out.

BASH: And how far are you going to dig on that?

SCHIFF: Well, this will not be the work alone of the Intelligence Committee. It will be our responsibility to make sure that we're getting good intelligence on, not just the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but also Saudi policy vis-a-vis Qatar, in Yemen, and that the Congress is informed, that we can make good policy decisions, that we can truth-tell if the president is misrepresenting the matter to the American people, so that we're -- we have a foreign policy driven that is by American interests, not by some interest of the president. So, that will be our responsibility. I think others will also have

the responsibility of looking at, are there financial entanglements with the Gulf? Are there financial inducements that the president has not to want to cross the Saudis? That cannot be allowed to drive U.S. policy.

BASH: Specifically on the -- on the murder of Khashoggi, the president says the CIA has not reached a final conclusion on whether the Saudi crown prince at least knew about it.

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, says flatly the president is lying about that. Do you know? Have you seen the CIA assessment? And is the president lying?

SCHIFF: I have been briefed by the CIA. And while I cannot discuss the contents of the briefing in any way, I can say that I think the president is being dishonest with the American people.

I don't know why. It's certainly not atypical. Frankly, the president has been dishonest with the country about a great many things. But I think what is most important here is, we need to speak up for our Democratic values.

The president -- you know, it's -- it would be one thing if the president were leveling with the American people and saying, OK, this is what happened, this is what we know, this is what took place, but, nonetheless, we need to maintain a relationship with the kingdom.

But that's not what he's doing. And I just think that it causes our standing in the world to plummet. It telegraphs to despots around the world they can murder people with impunity, and that this president will have his -- their back, as long as they praise him, as long as they do business with him, potentially.

And that cannot be the guiding principle behind our foreign policy.

BASH: There's a report out this week that indicates your committee -- you will be the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in January -- is staffing up on money laundering and forensic accounting experts.

Is that true? And, if so, why?

SCHIFF: I don't want to talk about our staffing.

But it is certainly true that one of the issues that the Republicans would not allow us to investigate when they were running the committee -- and I don't think Congress has looked into this at all, and I don't know that Bob Mueller has -- is whether the Russians have been laundering money through the president's businesses, and this is the financial hold that the Russians may have.

It would certainly explain the otherwise bewildering conduct of the president in Helsinki, many of the president's comments, pro-Putin comments. It would explain why his sons have said at various times they don't need money from U.S. banks, they get all the money they need from Russia or a disproportionate of their assets come from Russia.

Is this, again, the -- the hidden hand of American financial policy, a Russian financial hand? We do need to get an answer to that and be able to tell the American people, yes, it's true, or, no, it's not. The American deserve to know that the president has their interests in mind, not his pecuniary interests.

[09:20:03]

BASH: You mentioned the Mueller investigation.

You have said that the acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, was -- quote -- "chosen for the purpose of interfering with the Mueller investigation."

Obviously, Whitaker had made some pretty harsh comments about the investigation in the past. But now that he is in the role, have you actually seen him take any concrete steps to impede the probe?

SCHIFF: Well, the fact of the matter is, he's not telegraphing what he's doing. He's not telling us. He's not telling anyone, at least in Congress.

BASH: But you probably -- do you think you would have heard, that there would have been some crying foul from within Justice?

SCHIFF: I don't know that we would hear.

And I don't know what steps he has taken, whether he is merely getting briefed now and deliberating on whether he will allow Mueller to subpoena the president, or whether he will allow Mueller to look into this issue, or whether he's giving Mueller a time certain when Mueller needs to wrap up his investigation. We simply don't know.

But I will tell you this, Dana. We're going to find out. The American people need to know whether this president is obstructing justice, whether he has obstructed justice in the past, whether his appointment of Whitaker was designed to obstruct justice, whether it's having the effect of obstructing justice, whether there was some kind of a discussion, deal, bargain, arrangement, understanding.

BASH: How are you going to find that out?

SCHIFF: Well, we are going to bring Whitaker before the Congress, assuming he's still in his position at the time when Democrats take over. We may bring him in whether he's in that position or not to find out the answers to these questions.

One of the key decisions that the attorney general will make, whoever is in that role, is, when Bob Mueller puts together a report on, among other things, obstruction of justice, will that report be shared with the American people? Will it be shared with Congress?

The American people need to know, they deserve to know whether their president is interfering with the impartial administration of justice. So, we will do everything necessary to find out. BASH: Before I let you go, I want to ask you about Nancy Pelosi.

Nine more of your fellow Democrats in the House are now threatening to withhold their support for her to be speaker of the House once again. That's on top of 16 Democrats who signed a letter on Monday.

I know you support her, but is there any doubt in your mind that she will have the votes, not just among Democrats, but obviously, most importantly, when it comes to a vote on the House floor in January?

SCHIFF: I'm very confident she is going to have the votes that she needs, and, even more, that she is the right person for the job right now.

We don't want to go into this very challenging time, where everything is on the line for the country, where the rule of law is on the line, where people's health care is on the line, without the best tactician, without the best organizer to keep our caucus together.

That is going to be a more challenging task than ever before, because we have a more diverse caucus than ever before. And if there were someone else that had that same package or talents, I would say, support them.

But no one, I think, is better qualified than she is right now. There's no one I want to see more in that role. And I'm confident, at the end of the day, she has the votes to do it.

BASH: Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

BASH: Appreciate it.

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